Halfway houses ticketed for not having licenses

Kris Hill

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

Two halfway houses in the Hazelcrest neighborhood in southeast Las Vegas were cited Tuesday afternoon by the county's business license department for operating without licenses.

A third halfway house for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts received its license before the citations were issued Tuesday and was not ticketed, Ardel Jorgensen, director of the county's business license department, said.

All three had been operating without proper business licensing from the county -- two of them for about a year -- Jorgensen said. The two unlicensed homes still had not met fire and safety standards required for licenses.

The owners -- Lorri Ahlm, her brother, Phillip Ahlm, and their mother, Judy Nelson -- had hoped to have that taken care of by the end of last week and have the houses licensed.

The penalty for operating a business without a license is as much as $1,000 or a maximum of six months in jail per citation, Jorgensen said. The owners were ordered to appear in Justice Court Jan. 26.

The houses will be inspected again in a week and cited if they still are not licensed, Jorgensen said, adding they will be inspected weekly until they obtain the licenses. The county does not have authority to shut down the houses, however, she said.

The trio planned to open two more halfway houses in the neighborhood by the end of January. Jorgensen said her department advised them against doing so without proper licensing.

The citations were issued after County Commissioner Dario Herrera hosted a public meeting last week at Woodbury Middle School, where many neighbors voiced concerns over the lack of government oversight of halfway houses, particularly on such issues as licensing and density.

The three halfway houses are with a half-mile radius.

Now that the licensing issue has been addressed, Herrera said, he will spend the next few weeks focusing on what the County Commission can do about the density issue.

He expects to review a draft of a proposed county ordinance on Friday that will limit the number of houses that can be placed in one neighborhood. The commisioner plans to get the ordinance on the agenda in early January, he said.